thekristoffersuniverseinwarfandomcom-20200213-history
North Korea
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) (Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국; Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk), abbreviated as DPRK, and commonly referred to as North Korea, is a country in East Asia, located in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang, by both land area and population, with a population of 3,255,388 people. The Amnok River and the Tumen River together form the international border between North Korea and the People's Republic of China. A small section of the Tumen River is also located along the border between North Korea and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, technically following the river's thalweg. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the boundary between North Korea and South Korea. North Korea is home to 28 million people. The Korean Peninsula was governed by the Korean Empire from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, until it was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910, an period known as Korea under Japanese rule. Following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945, Japanese rule was brought to an end. Following the Division of Korea, the Korean peninsula was divided into two occupied zones in 1945, with the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the United States of America. A United Nations–supervised election held in 1948 led to the creation of separate Korean governments for the two occupation zones, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the Republic of Korea in the south. North Korea and South Korea claim sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula, which led to the start of the Korean War in 1950. An armistice in 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement committed both to a cease-fire, but the two countries remain officially at war, since a formal peace treaty was never signed. Both states were accepted into the United Nations in 1991. North Korea is a single-party state under a united front led by the Korean Workers' Party (KWP). The country's government follows the Juche ideology of self-reliance, initiated by the country's first President of North Korea, Kim Il-sung. After his death, Kim Il-sung was declared the country's Eternal President of the Republic. Juche became the official state ideology, replacing Marxism–Leninism, when the country adopted a new constitution in 1972. With the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, combined with the reforms Glasnost and Perestroika he introducted in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union and the New Union Treaty in August 1991 which reformed the USSR into the Union of Soviet Sovereign States of the Soviet Union, North Korea introducted major economic reforms. North Korea emerged as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, which would be compared to the rapid economic growth rates South Korea experimenced during the same time. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il adopted Songun, or "military-first" policy in order to strengthen the country and its government. In 2009, references to Communism (Chosŏn'gŭl: 공산주의) were systematically removed from the country's constitution and legal documents altogether. North Korea has been described as a totalitarian, Stalinist dictatorship with an elaborate cult of personality around the Kim family and one of the lowest-ranking human rights records of any country. As a result of its isolation and authoritarian rule, it has sometimes been labelled the "Hermit kingdom", a name once given to its predecessor, the Korean Empire. In 2011 North Korea had the lowest Democracy Index of any nation on Earth. North Korea is one of the world's most militarized countries, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the 5th largest in the world, after the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics of the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, the United States, and India. It is a recognized nuclear-weapons state and has an active space program, the Korean Committee of Space Technology. The economy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is one of the socialist world's largest and most developed national economies, which reached over $5 trillion in 2048, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It is an socialist-oriented market economy, which is very similar to that of the economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, the economy of the People's Republic of China and the economy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. From 1948 until 1990, North Korea had an industrial-powered centrally planned economy which saw heavy investments in heavy industry, military and energy. The capital of Pyongyang has, since the major economic reforms were introducted in the early 1990s, emerged as the major industrial and financial centre of North Korea. Since the late 1980s, Pyongyang has underwent an major construction boom with Ryugyong Hotel being the country's first supertall skyscraper, standing at 330 metres (1,082.7 feet) and was topped-out in 1992. The Korean People's Army is the fifth largest standing army in the world, with 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary personnel. The Korean People's Air Force possesses 1,700 aircraft of different types, while the Korean People's Navy maintains an modern and powerful fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and an 85,000-tons supercarrier. North Korea possesses weapons of mass destruction, and is recognized as an major military power. North Korea is a member of the United Nations, Warsaw Pact, World Trade Organisation, G20, and the Comecon. Category:Socialist states Category:Satellite states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union